False name on police report results in perjury charge

EDMONDS — A Seattle woman might have done well to consider the words of the late British novelist and poet Thomas Hardy: “If an offense come out of the truth, better is it that the offense come than that the truth be concealed.”

The woman’s alleged attempt to sidestep a misdemeanor warrant ended in her arrest for investigation of perjury and criminal impersonation.

On Tuesday night, the woman was a back seat passenger in a car with friends. Edmonds police stopped the car because it matched the description of one driven away from a robbery in a motel parking lot on Highway 99. A Seattle man with the nickname of “Lumpy” was in the car. He was arrested for allegedly hitting an acquaintance over the head with a rock and stealing his shoes.

The woman, 33, was asked to write a witness statement and did so.

Police soon realized she had signed a false name on the bottom of the report. The form includes, in bold-faced italic, a line that the statement is true under the penalty of perjury.

Instead of using her own name, she used a friend’s name.

When confronted, she acknowledged that there was warrant out for her arrest on a gross misdemeanor and she feared she would be taken into custody.

Her fear soon was realized when she was arrested on the warrant and the new charges, both felonies, before being booked into the Snohomish County Jail.

“It’s amazing how people will try false names without really thinking things through,” Edmonds police Sgt. Mark Marsh said. “She was in a hole and just kept digging.”